Worley impresses, Howard smashes

Vance Worley (1-0. 0.00) got the call, I’m guessing, sometime Wednesday or Thursday to grab what he needed for a couple starts in the Majors. It wasn’t the first time the Phillies (17-8) called on their young spectacle wearing right hander. Watching him on the mound tonight, you could tell he had been there before.

Aside from the four walks allowed by Worley, it really was an ideal start. The four walks never did hurt the Phillies as Worley had the Mets (11-16) looking at called third strikes most of the night. He had five strikeouts all caught looking.

This was Worley’s sixth appearance in the bigs (three starts), and his ERA is 0.95 in 19 innings pitched. He threw 102 pitches tonight and only allowed two hits in six innings. Before the game Charlie Manuel said if he could get Worley to throw 5-7 innings it would be a perfect start. Well Charlie, ask and you shall receive.

Worley held up his end of the bargain on the mound and was hoping Philly hitters would do the same. The Phillies settled into the game nicely, and starting tearing off runs in the fourth inning. By the time the scoring was over in the seventh, the Phils had rattled off 10 hits and 10 runs. A couple nonsense runs in the ninth by David Herndon spoiled the shutout but the Phillies still won 10-3.

Placido Polanco is a hitter. All he does is hit. He had two more hits tonight to raise his batting average to .390 which is third best in the majors. He also picked up RBIs number 17 and 18 as did team mate Ben Francisco. Benny Fresh also added two hits along with Jimmy Rollins from the three hole. Polanco’s two hits gave him 39 hits for the month of April; a new Phillies record. Twelve of his first 25 games this season have been multi-hit games and he has hit safely in 22 of those 25 games.

The big piece Ryan Howard can hit too. Oh and did you catch the part where he likes hitting against Mets starter Mike Pelfrey(1-3, 7.39)? Howard added another home run to list of hits off Pelfrey for his career. He is now hitting .412 against the Mets righty. Howard would connect again in the seventh inning only this time with bases loaded. Two hits, two home runs and six RBIs on the night for Howard.

It was Howard’s 10th career grand slam. No other Phillie has more than seven. Yes, Mike Schmidt has seven. The six RBIs gave Howard 27 on the season. 27 RBIs in the month of April is also a new record for the Phillies. Pat Burrellhad 25 in 2008.

Howard’s slam was the Mets 18th allowed grand slam since the last time a Mets player has hit one. Ouch. It was Howard’s 259th home run of his career tying him with Del Ennis for second on the all time home run leaders for the Phillies. Yes, Mike Schmidt is first (548).

Injury Updates.

Ruben Amaro Jr. spoke to reporters during the game about the injuries to some of his guys. If you would like to watch the video you can do so here .

The long and short of it goes like this:

–Joe Blanton was examined and it was very good. He should start tossing in two or three days.

–Jose Contreras will starting a throwing program in the middle of next week, probably around the fifth.

–Carlos Ruiz is still pretty sore but was better today. He will continue to be day-to-day.

–J.C. Romero has a good bullpen session today and will have another one Sunday. If all goes well, he could have a rehab assignment on Tuesday. Odds are Lakewood.

–Domonic Brown is playing well and will stay playing in Clearwater for the weekend and then they will decide where to go from there.